From what I saw on the FreeviewHD preview channel, TV1 and TV2 plan to broadcast selected programmes in HD including Criminal Minds, Pushing Up Daisies, Without a Trace and others. I guess they are following TV3 and if the show is available in HD, they will broadcast it that way.

lchiu7: From what I saw on the FreeviewHD preview channel, TV1 and TV2 plan to broadcast selected programmes in HD including Criminal Minds, Pushing Up Daisies, Without a Trace and others. I guess they are following TV3 and if the show is available in HD, they will broadcast it that way.

I see during the Olympics that TVNZ is advertizing "In HD where available" on some of their upcoming programs but looking at TV Guide that all programs on TVNZ post Olympics are not listed as HD 5.1 as they are on CH3.. So who knows when regular HD will happen on TVNZ..

sbiddle: That is their plan. AAC will always be the default stereo audio however. They could never transmit just in AC3 because when 5.1 audio was transmitted the box would need to mix this back to stereo.

Which every dvd player ever made is able to do, so its not new technology to do it. It seems that the specs call for that horrid he-aac codec so thats what they must do, just like a dvd is supposed to always have a ac3 soundtrack on it, even if there are better ones as well.